Tools for fairness: Increased structure in the selection process reduces discrimination
Wolgast, Sima LU ; Bäckström, Martin LU and Björklund, Fredrik LU
(2017)
In PLoS ONE
- Abstract
- Employment discrimination causes problems at the labor market, and is hard to combat. Can increasing the degree of structure when selecting applicants increase fairness? Students were asked to perform a computerized selection task and were either provided with tools for systematizing information about the applicants (structured selection) or no such tools (unstructured selection). We hypothesized and found that a structured process, where employing recruitment tools rather than the recruiter’s impressionistic judgment is key, improves the ability to identify job-relevant criteria and hence selecting more qualified applicants, even when in-group favoritism is tempting (e.g. when the outgroup applicants are more competent). Increasing... (More)
- Employment discrimination causes problems at the labor market, and is hard to combat. Can increasing the degree of structure when selecting applicants increase fairness? Students were asked to perform a computerized selection task and were either provided with tools for systematizing information about the applicants (structured selection) or no such tools (unstructured selection). We hypothesized and found that a structured process, where employing recruitment tools rather than the recruiter’s impressionistic judgment is key, improves the ability to identify job-relevant criteria and hence selecting more qualified applicants, even when in-group favoritism is tempting (e.g. when the outgroup applicants are more competent). Increasing structure helped recruiters select more competent applicants and reduced ethnic discrimination. Increasing the motivation to carefully follow the structured procedure strengthened these effects further. We conclude that structure pays off, and that motivational factors should be taken into account in order for it to have the optimal effect. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/6036aeb4-8417-49a6-92d3-397dff17aa3a
- author
- Wolgast, Sima
LU
; Bäckström, Martin
LU
and Björklund, Fredrik
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2017-12-11
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- personnel selection, recruitment, structure, systematicity, discrimination, ethnicity, Middle-East, organizational psychology
- in
- PLoS ONE
- article number
- e0189512
- pages
- 15 pages
- publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85038441312
- ISSN
- 1932-6203
- DOI
- 10.1371/journal.pone.0189512
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 6036aeb4-8417-49a6-92d3-397dff17aa3a
- date added to LUP
- 2017-12-12 11:21:09
- date last changed
- 2022-04-25 04:24:22
@article{6036aeb4-8417-49a6-92d3-397dff17aa3a,
abstract = {{Employment discrimination causes problems at the labor market, and is hard to combat. Can increasing the degree of structure when selecting applicants increase fairness? Students were asked to perform a computerized selection task and were either provided with tools for systematizing information about the applicants (structured selection) or no such tools (unstructured selection). We hypothesized and found that a structured process, where employing recruitment tools rather than the recruiter’s impressionistic judgment is key, improves the ability to identify job-relevant criteria and hence selecting more qualified applicants, even when in-group favoritism is tempting (e.g. when the outgroup applicants are more competent). Increasing structure helped recruiters select more competent applicants and reduced ethnic discrimination. Increasing the motivation to carefully follow the structured procedure strengthened these effects further. We conclude that structure pays off, and that motivational factors should be taken into account in order for it to have the optimal effect.}},
author = {{Wolgast, Sima and Bäckström, Martin and Björklund, Fredrik}},
issn = {{1932-6203}},
keywords = {{personnel selection; recruitment; structure; systematicity; discrimination; ethnicity; Middle-East; organizational psychology}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{12}},
publisher = {{Public Library of Science (PLoS)}},
series = {{PLoS ONE}},
title = {{Tools for fairness: Increased structure in the selection process reduces discrimination}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0189512}},
doi = {{10.1371/journal.pone.0189512}},
year = {{2017}},
}